But for everybody else, let's just go ahead and jump right into the narrative, shall we? Splendid!
Foreward
Mann’s very brief Foreward to The Magic Mountain seems essential primarily because he wants to clearly distinguish his story as belonging to the past. And he stresses that even though it occurred in a not-long-ago past, its "pastness" is ineradicably important, simply because it occurred before World War I. From Mann’s perspective, the time before and after The Great War are so radically different that they cannot be equated in any way. We know that Mann began his novel before the war, then radically expanded and changed it during and after the long conflict.The author is in no way specific about how times have changed since the war - to him and to his European (especially German) readership in 1924, the transformation of life and the attitudes toward virtually everything must be too palpably obvious and ubiquitous to bother going into giving specifics. Primarily, however, we sense and may assume that one of the chief differences is the loss of a general state of innocence and naivete. Long-held ideals and assumptions about life in general and Western civilization in particular undoubtedly seemed simpler and more clear-cut before the great conflagration than they could ever be afterward. And this simplicity is clearly meant to be indelibly personified by the hero of the novel, Hans Castorp.
Mann describes Hans Castorp as "a perfectly ordinary, if engaging young man." It is in fact his very "ordinariness" that will allow Hans to be our surrogate guide through the world of The Magic Mountain. Mann stresses that this is "his" story, and indeed everything we encounter in the book will be filtered through Hans’ experience of it and his reactions to it. This is absolutely essential for the dynamic of the novel to have its desired effect. For The Magic Mountain is ultimately a bildungsroman, or a novel of education. Yet at the same time, through its ironic tone, it is also a parody of a traditional bildungsroman, and we will have to maintain some critical distance from Hans throughout the novel. In short, we must not only experience and learn everything that Hans Castorp does, and understand it in his terms - we must also be able to simultaneously keep ourselves separate and distinct from the "perfectly ordinary young man" and constantly make judgments as to whether we agree or disagree with him. This will prove to be no easy matter.
Nor will the commentary of the narrator be of much assistance to us. Mann’s high-styled narration has an obvious mocking tone, and it is clear that its chief purpose is to deliver a careful distance of irony. We will never be able to trust the narrator as to the ultimate judgment of Hans or his adventures, so we will constantly be tossed back and forth between the two - Hans Castorp and the narrator - in a perpetual state of ambiguity. We will be continually in the very difficult position of having to make our own independent interpretation and evaluation of thought, action and event which our hero encounters.
It is this narrative scheme that makes The Magic Mountain such a notoriously difficult book. Unlike many other modernist masterpieces, it is a not a difficult book to read. But it is tremendously challenging to understand. While some high modernist writers, such as James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and William Faulkner, will oftentimes adopt a style that is quite obscure even on a literal level, Mann’s narration seems relatively straight-forward. While the author does not resort to obfuscation on a primary level, it is by no means clear precisely what his views and intentions are in presenting the material he chooses to narrate. Ultimately, the challenge of reading The Magic Mountain is basically the same challenge that the "ordinary" post-War citizen of the Western world - and especially the post-War German - faces in real life.
Even more that most modern novels, The Magic Mountain is quite self-consciously allegorical in nature. The mountain sanatorium quite obviously represents a microcosm of pre-War Europe, among many other things. Hans Castorp is not only an "ordinary" Everyman making his way through a strange and confusing environment. Mann also clearly wishes to present him as a personification of his own contemporary Germany and the choices it must face in the modern world - both politically and culturally.
Indeed, in a very large sense, we can take the author at his word in the Foreward that the story is very much akin to "a fairy tale." And since fairly tales are basically myths using archetypal characters and situations for us to interpret on a deeper level and a larger scale, we know right away the kind of thinking that is going to be required of us to appreciate the "story" in any meaningful sense. Mann indeed, labelled his mountain as "magic" for some very good reasons.
Chapter 1
In keeping with his conceptualization of the novel as an allegory or "fairy tale," Mann continually utilized devices such as the Wagnerian "leitmotif" to help enhance this sensibility. A "leitmotif" is a short, constantly recurring musical phrase associated with a particular person, place or idea. The great German composer Richard Wagner used them to help structure and organize his operas, and Mann follows the composer’s method here, giving The Magic Mountain a notably "musical" quality." One of the many leitmotifs he employs is the use of the number "seven," which the narrator declares in the course of the novel to be a "significantly satisfying number," and indeed the book is divided into seven chapters, some of much greater length than others. In fact, the length of the chapters themselves have corollaries to the experience of the main character’s experience of time itself, which is another of the novel’s great leitmotifs. Indeed, there are points in The Magic Mountain where the book seems to be completely swallowed by the notion of time itself.
The first chapter is relatively short, however, in keeping with "real time," as it chronicles the arrival of Hans Castorp to the Berghof Sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps and records his initial impressions of the environment. In short, this is an "introductory chapter," and it serves to both set the scene as well as the tone of the book, was well as making acquaintance of some of the major themes that will be developed in the course of the long novel.
Each chapter is sub-divided into various "sections," each with a title heading, and we will discuss each of these separately. The first chapter has but three sections, and they each follow a natural part of a single developing narrative.
Arrival
"An ordinary young man was on his way from his hometown of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the canton of Graubunden. It was the height of summer, and he planned to stay for three weeks." Thus, in such a simple and humble fashion opens one of the most monumental and challenging epics of modern literature. Hans Castorp, our hero, is the "ordinary young man," and we eventually come to see that he is indeed both "ordinary," yet at the same time "extraordinary." That is, he is simple and unformed, somewhat of a blank slate - yet he will eventually emerge with a remarkable proclivity for learning, growth and careful discernment. He will be subject to every physical and metaphysical temptation known to man, and he will continually grow through his remarkable ordeal. Whether he will ultimately end up a better man than when he arrived is something that will be up to the reader to determine.
Mann is careful to describe Hans Castorp’s journey in such a way that the reader gets a very tangible sense of moving far away, to a distant place of a definite type of "otherness." As Hans slowly climbs high up into the Swiss Alps on a narrow gauge train, he becomes acutely aware of the great distance he has traveled and marvels at the unusual, changing mountain scenery. One has a sense that he is quite definitely moving far away from his old life and entering a completely new world. This is absolutely necessary for the effect that Mann wishes to convey. Hans Castorp is not merely visiting a new place - he is entering a mythical world, far removed from his ordinary life below.
When he finally reaches the top of the line, his cousin, Joachim Ziemssen is there to meet him at the station. Joachim is also a young man, about Hans’ age, and though they come from the same home and background, we will come to see that there are very distinct differences between the two. Joachim has an ambition to be a soldier, hopefully an officer, and much to his chagrin, his career has been temporarily put on hold by a mild case of tuberculosis that he is waiting to be cured by his stay at the Berghof Sanitorium. He has already been up at the institute for nearly six months.
As he looks quite healthy, Hans quickly assumes that Joachim is cured and will be returning home with him in three weeks. Not only does Joachim disabuse Hans of this notion - his seeming health is only the result of a tan - he announces that the director of the sanitorium has just added six more months to his stay. Hans is incredulous at this, insisting that at their age that they should be quick to act, remarking, "We don’t have that much time in life!"
Joachim can merely shrug - which he does in a manner that disturbs Hans, as its weary nonchalance does not match with the character of his cousin. Little does young Castorp realize how much spending time at the sanatorium changes a person. Joachim tells him that time is different "for us up here," and that "three weeks are almost nothing for us." He adds, casually, "A man changes a lot of his ideas here."
This last line is probably the greatest understatement in the entire book. As we shall see, Hans Castorp will transform into almost a completely different person as we join him at his long seven-year stay at the Berghof. It is important that we grasp him in his "natural state" at his arrival, and note how truly ordinary he really is, due to the simplicity of his life back home. Hans is a petit-bourgeois young German, about to embark on a very practical career. He carries with him a copy of a book entitled Ocean Steamships, and it is quite obvious that he has never examined his assumptions about life in any detail whatsoever.
Hans is mildly shocked and disturbed to see the resignation in his cousin, and he dislikes it when he continually refers to the people at the sanatorium as "us," implying a marked distinction between the people up on the mountain and those down below. Little does Hans realize how much is really implied by this statement, and Mann will be very deliberate and careful in showing us Hans Castorp’s transition over time to his joining the ranks of those "up here."
Still, Hans is happy to see his cousin, he’s pleased to be in a new place, and he’s admiring the scenery and the fresh mountain air. On their buggy ride to the sanatorium, Joachim calmly informs Hans that during the winter, a neighboring sanatorium uses bobsleds to transport the "bodies" down the mountain. At first, Hans does not grasp what he means, but once he realizes it, he is so shocked that he bursts out laughing. He accuses Joachim of having become a cynic. He is told that the director of the sanatorium - a Dr. Behrens - is also a cynic. And Joachim adds that his assistant - Dr. Krokowski - "dissects the patients’ psyches."
Hans Castorp finds all of this information frankly incredible, and he begins laughing so hard he can hardly control himself. It is a beautiful scene of innocence, and we should keep it mind throughout the book. For as we spend more and more time with Hans on the magic mountain, we become more and more like he becomes, unbelievably ready to accept the most preposterous situations and absurdities as if they were absolutely normal. This is our arrival, as well as Hans’, and for a time, we shall still be able to think discriminately, like him - like the outsiders that we are.
Room 34
Hans Castorp’s room number at the Berghof Sanatorium is 34. If you add three and four, you get seven, a "magical" number that will represent the fairy-tale "otherness" of the institution throughout the book. Joachim’s room is next-door, and Hans becomes incredulous when his cousin tells him that he and all the other patients sit outside on their balconies for two hours every evening for their "rest cure," no matter what the weather. It is important to note that the neophyte from the "lower world" finds so many customs of the mountain to be ludicrous upon his arrival, as he will eventually accept all these strange novelties over time as "normal."
On the other hand, Hans does not react strongly when Joachim informs him that a woman patient died in his room - in his bed - two days before. If this seems strange, it is because, as we shall soon learn, that Hans’ life has been strongly influenced by death, so that he has a more casual acceptance of it than most people. As a matter of fact, he has a rather shallow and "romanticized" view of it, and this will affect many of his reactions at the Berghof.
As they are leaving for dinner, however, Hans hears a cough from an adjoining room that is so thick and vile that he becomes unnerved. Joachim tells him that the cough comes from "an Austrian aristocrat" who is close to death. Hans is not so familiar, or comfortable with, serious illness, and he feels quite sickened.
Disease at the Berghof is, among many other things, a metaphor for the corruption and rot of European society before World War I, which Mann, I believe, thinks will make the coming conflict inevitable. Seen in this light, it is appropriate that Hans’ first encounter with illness is with an "Austrian aristocrat" - as the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire (and aristocracy in general), is seen as an outmoded, reactionary power, coming into conflict with modern political and economic forces emerging in Europe.
We must note, however, that even as Hans has such strong initial reactions to the strange things at the sanatorium, he complains of coldness and his face is hot and flushed - he is already beginning to fall into sickness himself without his realizing it.
In the Restaurant
The cousins have missed the evening meal, so they adjourn to the sanitorium’s restaurant to enjoy a fine dinner and a bottle of wine. The restaurant seems to represent kind of a halfway-house between the Berghof world and the ordinary world below, and as Joachim drinks his Bordeaux and chats with Hans, he visibly cheers up and becomes more like himself momentarily. He tells Hans about some of the patients up there, saying that they are gossips. One lady in particular, one Frau Stohr, is annoyingly silly and mis-pronounces all sorts of words and phrases. This is a little preview of the ridiculous assortment of patients that Hans (and we) shall come to know up there in the rarefied mountain air - stupid, petty, shallow and pretentious, they represent the general society of pre-War Europe.
Hans begins to tell Joachim about an "epoch-making" plan to improve navigation back home, and despite his genuine lowland enthusiasm, he keeps returning with greater and greater curiosity about the Berghof. He is already beginning to be seduced by the lure of the place, plus his head is getting hotter and he is becoming extremely drowsy (plus a little drunk).
On their way back to their rooms, they encounter Dr. Krokowski in the lobby. Joachim introduces his cousin to the short, bearded Polish psychoanalyst, who presumes that Hans is a new patient. Hans assures the doctor that he is merely a visitor, and that he is perfectly healthy. Krokowski responds sarcastically by saying that he has "never met a perfectly healthy person before." This strange statement is not only quite telling about the general attitude of the medical staff up here, but it prefigures certain experiences that Hans will be having not only with this doctor, but in general, during his stay.
As Hans sinks off to sleep, he is momentarily reminded that a woman just recently died in the bed he is in, but he manages to brush off any creepy discomfort. His night is filled with disturbing dreams, however, as he envisions Joachim, along with the Austrian aristocrat with the horrible cough, riding down the bobsled course together, an obvious premonition of death.
Thus, we have in the course of the short first chapter a clear portrait of the young Hans Castorp and his arrival at the Berghof Sanitorium. The basic scene is set, and we are ready for the course of the novel to begin. It is clear that the "mountain" is truly an abnormal place and that its ways seem strange to an outsider. It will indeed prove to be "magical" as it is already beginning to cast its "spell" on our hero. This brief sketch is not simply an introduction - it is the beginning of an initiation: one that will continue to grow each day Hans Castorp spends at the institution.
But we will have to wait a bit to experience the second day’s effects. For in the second chapter, Mann decides to briefly interrupt his narrative and backtrack a bit, giving the reader a bit more crucial information about the protagonist. For no one arrives at any new destination without carrying a bit of baggage.
